What Makes You A Good Financial Planner
What Makes You A Good Financial Planner…
I have decided to write a post on this after a personal conversation with my relative during our Chinese New Year dinner. And it was this conversation that I finally got to know the reasons why he did not engage my financial services even though he knows that I am in this career for over 4 years plus.
This post is also a reminder to myself, to any person who is inspired to be a Financial Planner or are already one – on our duties and obligations to any clients that we are attending to! Even if you are a person who believe in the benefits of insurance, you can read this post to know your rights as a client!
What Did I Gather From The Conversation?
My relative believes in the benefits of insurance and have taken up a lot of plans (and paying a lot of premiums) when he was in his working age. His neighbor happens to be starting out as a Financial Planner and also happened to be his first point of contact – as such, my relative took up all kinds of insurance that she recommends. He even recommended his colleagues and friends to support the neighbor. This lady rose up the ranks and achieved many accomplishments like MDRT.
She is retired and she has since passed on all her portfolios to her son. And her son is supposed to be the servicing agent of my relative.
My relative was well taken care of by the Lady – she responded to most of his queries and needs. But after the son took over, things changed. Whenever my relative has a question with regards to his existing policies, all he got from the new Agent is a simple few word answers. Nothing more than that. My relative wanted to file a claim but was told on the phone that it cannot be done and there’s no further explanation.
The time that my relative really hear from the new Agent is when he needs to hit his sales target and wanted the support from my relative. At that point of time, my relative is already retired but… he still supported with a 15-year Endowment Plan (when he actually wanted a Term Insurance and Health Insurance).
All these happened 6 years back and in this year itself, my relative feels that he does not really know what he has been paying. He wanted to terminate the plan but was told that the surrender value for his 6-years-old Endowment Plan is a big Zero! Of course, he was shocked to hear that and was told to keep paying… My relative does not know what other options that he can have…
And this is just a small part of his bad experiences. He related all these to me and expressed that he has been quite foolish to have committed so much yet do not know what he has bought at the end of the day. He bought because of the friendship and support for his neighbor. Now.. he is beginning to hate Insurance…
It was this conversation that really got me thinking real hard of what makes a good Financial Planner… And the five pointers below are what I feel are the duties and obligations of a good Financial Planner…
